


A Kind of Cosmic Joke

by eatdirt



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Clothes Sharing, Heavy Petting, Humor, M/M, Season 06, Size Kink, grizzled!Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 00:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15618939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatdirt/pseuds/eatdirt
Summary: And it's not like it's a big deal. It's decidedlynota big deal. Really it's hardly a deal at all. It's just that, maybe, in the trick of the light, if you squint and turn your head just so, Keith is…Keith isbig.





	A Kind of Cosmic Joke

**Author's Note:**

> 5000 years late. I was inspired by all the lovely grizzled!Keith art I saw, but life and clinical depression got in the way—you know how it is.
> 
> In between two other fic challenges I'm signed up for, I hope to make time to create a second part to this with more clothes-sharing because 2018 is the year of living indulgently.
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated as always!

Lance isn’t the first to notice, but he’s stupidly the first to say something about it.

“Does he look bigger to you?” He blurts out. And then, because his mouth and brain aren’t on speaking terms, “Like, a lot bigger? Is it just me?”

No one says anything but they've had to have noticed. How could they not? The evidence is right there in glowing black-on-black. He chalks it up to the shock that Keith is back and in one piece for why no one teases him about his little slip-up. Then Keith drops a couple of bomb on them, truth-wise, and how much wider and taller he is and out of mind while they save the universe from imploding (again).

But then it gets quiet and Lance starts thinking about _it_ again.

And it's not like it's a big deal. It's decidedly _not_ a big deal. Really it's hardly a deal at all. It's just that, maybe, in the trick of the light, if you squint and turn your head just so, Keith is…

Keith is _big_. 

Well, not big-big. Not Shiro-big, and definitely not Hunk-big. Just big in comparison to how he was before. He's grown a good inch and a half. Lance can also see the swell of muscle in his arms and chest there certainly hadn't been there before. 

Before Lance could see monitors and screens behind him by only craning his head a little. This Keith (and it feels weird to talk about him that way like there's two Keiths running around the galaxy, but there's no other way he can really think of it) takes up so much more space, commands that much more attention. 

Keith being so much more has thrown the whole ship out of whack—at least as far as Lance is concerned. When they pass each other in the hallway Lance feels as if he has to take wider steps to avoid crashing into him, which is ridiculous. This is the same old Keith, even if his chest is wider and his dark eyes now tilt down to look at Lance instead of up. Lance is just thrown off his groove is all. He’ll get used to it. He’s been in space this long he can get used to _anything_.

What’s harder to get used to is how it all makes him feel. It’s not that he didn’t begrudgingly acknowledge that Keith was a good-looking guy before. Mullet-aside (or, maybe, including), he’s got all the hallmarks of an objectively attractive guy: dark eyes, full lips, a solid jaw. He still has all of that, but now it’s stacked on top of a wide chest and broad shoulders and it’s just not _fair_. 

He wishes he could say the feeling is jealous. Maybe it really is, in part. But there

Fuck, but he’s hot now. Like, _really_ hot.

Hot enough that it’s becoming a real problem. How he’s supposed to focus on the task at hand when Keith is right there, towering over him, radiating heat like a goddamn furnace (did he do that before? Lance is pretty sure he didn’t do that before). 

Even now when they’re in the lounge pouring over monitors with Keith fifteen feet across the room it’s hard not to look. He’s trying to concentrate on the task at hand, but every time Keith sniffs or moves or hums he’s back to being hyper-aware of his presence. 

“What?” Keith snaps.

Lance jolts and nearly falls out of his hair. “What ‘what’? _You_ ‘what’!”

“You’ve been staring at me for the past twenty minutes. Do I have something on my face?”

Keith swipes at invisible gunk on his face. Holy hell, was his hand always that big?

Lance physically shakes himself. “Nope. Just wonderin’ how one person can be so butt ugly.”

Keith rolls his eyes and goes back to staring broodily. He does that a lot now, staring broodily at things. He did a lot before, but now it’s like the only thing he does. No more rising to Lance’s bait. No more trying to get under his skin. Only staring broodily at things and being fucking _huge_.

Not getting a rise out of Keith annoys Lance more than it really should. It annoys him even more that not only has he turned back to his monitor, he’s now fiddling with the edge of his cup with those stupid long fingers. 

Even though he knows he shouldn’t poke the bear, he swivels around to face Keith.

“Could you stop that?” He growls.

Keith looks at him like he’s crazy. Which, _yeah_. “Stop doing what?”

Lance points an accusatory finger at his stupid, big hand. “That!”

He glances down at the offending hand, then back up at Lance. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

As far as rebuttals go, it’s pretty lowbrow. If this had been six months ago Lance would have brushed it off. At the very least he would have been able to come back with a more devastating reply than, “You think you’re so hot, don’t you?”

Keith actually rears back at that. “What the hell are you talking about, Lance?”

The one cell in his brain that still has a sense of self-preservation is screaming at him to _abortabortabort_ , but he’s already standing up and marching over to get into Keith’s personal space.

“Don’t act coy! You know what you’re doing! Walking around all… bossy, like you own the place!”

Keith stands up and, okay, fuck. Yeah. _That’s_ what this is really about. Keith stands up and suddenly Lance has to crane his neck up just a little. 

“What’s your problem? Keith growls. That’s another new thing he does now: he growls. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

Yes. “No! I just want you to stop being annoying.”

Keith mouth opens and closes like a fish. It would be funny if Lance wasn’t concerned he was going crazy.

“You’re insane,” Keith says, sounding awed. 

The embarrassment of the situation has finally caught up with Lance’s runaway rage and he fidgets uncomfortably. “Just—stay outta my way. Geez.”

He makes to storm off and accidentally shoulder-checks Keith on his way to the door. The fact that Keith barely budges stays at the forefront of his mind well into the night.

**— — — — —**

He might actually be going insane.

Two weeks have passed since his awkward, one-sided face-off with Keith and things are… weird. Weirder than normal, anyway. He’s not avoiding Keith, per se. They just haven’t happened to be in the same room alone all that often. When they are somehow alone they don’t have much to say to each other unless that’s not work-related.

And it’s not all Lance’s fault either; in this case, it takes two to avoid. Keith isn’t exactly sticking around to shoot the shit when their team meetings conclude with. Plus, on two separate occasions, he’s pretty sure Keith stopped and walked in the opposite direction when he saw Lance coming down the hall.

At first, it was a relief. Then it became an annoyance. Now it’s just kind of sad, and that _sucks_. 

In some silly way even though Keith is actually here, he misses him. They’ve been _off_ for a while now. He misses the easy banter and camaraderie of before—before he left, and before he got huge for no good reason. He tells himself things will go back to normal, but he hardly believes it himself. He just has to face the facts. Lying to himself won’t make things better.

Things are different now.

That’s just the way it is.

**— — — — —**

The regular bustle and hum of the castle at night has always been better than any warm glass of milk to get Lance sawing wood. There’s just something about the way it’s never really quiet that soothes him. Reminds him of back home, where getting a moment of silence was akin to turning the tides into wine.

He’s laying in bed, sheets kicked at his feet, drifting in that sweet space between sleep and waking when he hears the familiar hiss of his door unlock. He jolts upright, instantly in flight or flight mode, when he hears the familiar tenor of Keith’s voice floating solemnly from the darkness.

“I know what your problem is.”

He jumps fifty feet in the air. His arms flail out and knock against something in the darkness, but he can hardly focus on the throbbing in his wrist when there are so many alarm bells going off.

He squints in the darkness but can only make out the vaguest outline of Keith’s body in what little light is streaming in. 

It takes him a small eternity to process what Keith has said. His foggy brain yells at him to play dumb. Instead, he blurts, “No, you don’t.”

Keith sighs. Lance doesn’t need to see him to know he’s shaking his head with that stupid pensive look on his face. 

“We’re… different. That’s it, isn’t it?” Keith asks, voice lilting up at the end up certainly. “We’re not the way we were before. I was gone for… for a really long time. Longer than you know, really.”

The dark almost amplifies his voice, what with it being the only solidly _Keith_ thing he can cling on to. Lance realizes belatedly he’s clenching his sheets between his fists like a vice. He forces his fingers to unclench and shakes his head as if he can physically shake the last remnants of sleep from his mind. 

“That’s not it,” he insists. Because it isn’t. Not completely.

The lights flicker on. Lance squints at the sudden assault, but his eyes quickly zero in on Keith. He’s wearing his sleep clothes: baggy sweatpants that are so baggy anymore, a shirt with the collar stretched out and made thin from frequent washing. The hum of the surrounding ship is magnified by the weight of the silence between them.

Keith makes a growly, frustrated noise and runs his fingers roughly through his hair. “Fuck, then what is it, Lance? We can’t keep stepping around each other like we’re walking on eggshells. It’s not good for the team.”

For some reason, that is what gets Lance out of bed and on his feet. The team. Of course it’s about the team. Lance is fucking up the fucking feng shui of things and now Captain Keith, Leader Extraordinaire has to come chastise him for it. 

“And how is that my fault?” He nearly yells. 

“I’m not saying it’s your fault! I’m saying we both have been—off, that’s all! And that it’s making things awkward! God, why do you have to take things so personally all the time?”

“What do you mean all the time? Why do you have to be such a fucking jerk, huh?”

Keith takes a step forward that the cowardly part of Lance’s brain chooses to describe as menacingly. It takes every inch of Lance’s dignity and pride not to take a step back, to create space between them. 

Faltering, he spits out, “You’re the one making things awkward! I’m fine, dude. We’re both friggin’ fine.”

Keith guffaws. “You call this fine? Lance, you’ve barely looked me in the eye since I got back. I can count the number of words we’ve spoken to each other on one hand.”

All that is… true, yeah, but Lance has a really good reason for that. Keith doesn’t understand how difficult it is now, after everything. How every time Lance looks at him he’s reminded that things aren’t the same. That this isn’t his Keith, but a stranger walking around in his skin and clothes.

He tries to articulate those thoughts without the sadness and desperation. The words are there, but the syllables feel all wrong before they’re even out of his mouth. Frustration and annoyance tie his tongue up and jumble up his thoughts.

“Come on, man,” Lance grunts out. He feels stupidly helpless and trapped. “Can we not do this now? It’s the middle of the night. Did hitting that last spurt of puberty fudge up your sleep cycle?”

The words come out on a tremble—nervous. Keith eyes him, assessing, looking for hidden truths in Lance’s aura or what the fuck ever it is leaders do. Shiro had the habit of doing the same. Lance squirms under the scrutiny just the same.

Keith crowds into his space, though not with the familiar intimidation and warning that usually accompanies him getting into Lance’s face. His stance is hesitant, heat coming off of him in waves so thick that Lance distantly wonders how he hasn’t disintegrated yet. 

There’s a tension-filled eternity where neither of them speaks, as if both shocked into catatonia from Keith’s proximity. When Keith does speak he’s close enough for Lance to feel the heat of his breath ghosting across his face.

“Why do you keep bringing that up?” 

That wasn’t the question Lance was expecting. Caught off-guard and with his brain short-circuiting, he babbles out his response. “Bring up what?”

Keith opens his mouth, closes it. For the first time since he came barging in, he looks more unsure than confused or upset. Lance watches his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows and forces out words.

“That I—that I’m, uh. Big. Bigger than I was before.”

Lance’s mouth falls open on a knee-jerk denial but nothing comes out. His mouth opens and closes in quick succession like a trout. 

“Are you?” He manages to squeak out, feigning ignorance. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Keith’s eyes go impossibly wide with realization. “You—you do. You do you like this. You like me like this.”

“Shut up,” Lance says, voice so high it could shatter glass. 

Before he even has time to register the movement Keith is gripping his wrists.

“What part do you like? What do you like about me?” He whispers the words even though it’s only the two of them in the room. His voice is wispy and thin with need.

For the first time in his life words elude Lance. It feels like a trick. Like at any moment Keith is going yell “Sike!” and tell the others he got Lance hot and bothered without even trying. 

Fingers twitching and mouth dry, his eyes flicker all over Keith’s body. God, what part doesn’t he like? He already wanted every inch of Keith—that’s a fact he’s long past denying—but now there’s so much _more_ of Keith to want and it’s—it’s—

The grip on his wrists tightens, and then Keith is guiding his hands up to his chest where his palms lay flat against his pecs. Heat tingles his fingertips as the muscles underneath flex under his touch.

“Is it this?” Keith whispers, the heat in his voice rivaling the fire beneath Lance’s palms.

Yes, Lance’s brain hisses. His mouth stays closed in a firm line though, jaw aching with the weight of the words he can’t bring himself to say.

Keith pulls his wrists down, dragging his hands slowly down the length of his body to stop at his abdomen. The muscles there move like an alive thing, rising and falling with the quick, heady breaths Keith’s taking. Lance stares, awed and vaguely terrified.

“Is it this?” He prompts more urgently this time. “Is this what has you staring at me all the time?”

Embarrassment coils around Lance tightly, but then he hears it: the tremor of need in Keith’s voice. He wants this, Lance realizes belatedly. He wants Lance to want him. To admire his body and all its grown into being. It’s not Lance that’s tied around someone’s finger, it’s Keith, and he’s practically begging for Lance to rub his hands on him. 

Lance’s mouth pulls into a smirk. He gently tugs his hands from Keith’s grip and the hold falls away like water.

“No, man,” he says lowly. He doesn't match Keith’s whisper but he leans in all the same, their breaths mingling. “You don't get it.”

Slowly, he circles his hands from Keith’s hips to the small of his back. Keith arches, cat-like and graceful, pressing into Lance’s hands. 

“It's this.” he drags his fingers up along his spine to span across his shoulders. “And this.”

He bridges the last bit of space between them. The heat behind Keith’s eyes is so intense, so hotly focused on Lance, that he falters for just a second. In that moment Keith makes a noise that can only be described as a growl and then he’s swooping in to kiss him. The kiss is open-mouthed and hungry and absolutely filthy, and Lance is dizzy with it. His fingers dig into the skin of Keith’s shoulders and, fuck, he’s big and hard even in the thick of it, in the muscle and gristle and bone.  
Keith circles his arms around Lance’s waist and squeezes slightly. Lance squirms against the hold experimentally, just to see, and holy shit he can barely move. The realization sends a fresh wave of heat down his spine and fills his cock where it’s pressed against Keith’s thigh.

Keith grips the back of his neck firmly and draws a noise out of Lance that he’ll swear until the day he dies wasn’t a moan. 

“Bed. We need to—if you want—”

“Yeah, god, yes.”

Keith walks him back until the back of his knees hit the bed. They tumble together in a heap. The air gets knocked out of Lance’s lungs temporarily when his back hits the mattress, but he recovers quickly enough to match Keith’s quiet, sheepish chuckle. There’s a split second where this could turn awkward, so Lance surges up and connects their lips again to prevent that from happening. Keith makes a low, animalistic sound that rumbles in his chest ( _that broad fucking chest, holy shit_ ) and Lance shivers with the vibrations of it.

Keith is a warm weight on top of him. His hips move in slow, hitching circles almost unconsciously, his clothed cock an iron brand dragging against his thigh. His own cock pulses and aches in the confines of his sleep pants, pressed snug against Keith’s hip.

Then Keith does a particularly slow roll of his hips, deep and dirty and so fucking good, and Lance whimpers. Keith stops and pulls away.

“Is this okay?” He whispers into the heat between them. “If we just stay like this?”

The fog in Lance’s mind clears just enough for him to decipher Keith’s meaning. They’re both hot and hard and horny out of their minds, but there’s a hesitation and softness to their touches that speaks to the same thing. They’re not read, not for sex, but this? Kissing and grinding against each other so that Lance can feel the bunch and pull of his muscles? This is friggin’ _peachy_.

“Yeah,” Lance whispers back a little too enthusiastically, but so far gone he doesn’t even remember how to play it cool.. “Yeah, fuck, _yes_.”

**— — — — —**

There are few downsides to having a hot, grizzled boyfriend, Lance discovers. There’s the tiny blow to his ego whenever Keith plucks something off a high shelf he himself had struggled to grab just prior. The only other not-so-great aspect of having a very sexy, very attentive boyfriend is falling asleep with a mess in your pants and not having enough time to do your nightly skincare routine.

But the perks outweigh all of that. Having a boyfriend who can grab things off high shelves _is_ really helpful, and while he would love to have time to do his full skincare routine before turning in every night, the orgasms certainly make up for it.

Hunk walks into the kitchen and stops full-on, mid-yawn, to say, “That’s not your shirt.”

It’s a miracle he doesn’t choke on his spoon. “What? No! _What_?”

Even panicked, Lance is smart enough to admit that this particular rebuttal isn’t his finest. For one, there’s no way he can pass off the red and white jackets he’s wearing over his pajamas as his own. The thing is practically falling off of him, for another. The shoulder slips down just and he scrambles to pull it up.

Hunk raises his brows and gives a shit-eating grin. “Uh-huh. Right.”

Pidge materializes next to him, looking vaguely disinterested. “What’s happening now?”

“Lance is wearing Keith’s clothes,” Hunk supplies cheerfully.

After their particularly steamy make-out session the night before Lance had been stuck in a sort of daydream world where his hickies were pleasantly warm and his best friends weren’t assholes. The eggs that had gone cold while he zoned about thinking about bitten collarbones and wet sheets could have baked from the heat radiating off of his face.

Eloquently, Lance snaps, “Shut up.”

“Oh my god he is,” Pidge gasps.

“That’s adorable,” Allura swoons.

“I said shut up!”

A warm hand squeezes his shoulder from behind and keeps him from lunging out. He cranes his neck up to see Keith— _Keith, his boyfriend_ —-standing behind him with shoulders squared. 

“Alright guys,” he says in that deep, authoritative voice he’s been fond of lately, “cut it out. Get dressed, we’re training today.”

Hunk and Pidge groan but scurry off to do as they’re told. Lance stares up at his boyfriend—holy shit, Keith is his _boyfriend_ —and grins.

“That was awesome.”

Keith pecks him on the cheek. “ _You’re_ awesome. Now get dressed. You’re training, too.”

“What? But I’m your _boyfriend_. Doesn’t that mean I get, like, special treatment or something?” he whines petulantly. 

In a flash Keith’s eyes darken. He steps forward until he crowded into his space, his hot breath ghosting teasingly over his Lance’s lips. Just like that Lance goes from zero to sixty, already half-hard and 

He places a hand on Keith’s chest to half-heartedly push him away—if he really has to train with Hunk and Pidge, he’d rather not have to do it with the front of his suit tented for all the universe to see—but feeling the heat and strength there only serves to fuel his problem.

“I am your boyfriend,” he says. “But I’m also your leader. And I’m stronger than you. So, do what I tell you.”

Then, with a wicked grin and a wink, Keith tightens his pec and it actually _jumps_.

“You son of a bitch,” Lance breathes, awed, reverent, annoyed, and more than a little horny.

Keith only cackles and swoops down to place another kiss on his cheek. “Twenty laps. Now.”


End file.
